The Amache Japanese-American internment camp

[media-credit name=”Photo by Tom Parker. Courtesy Denver Public Library Western History Collection” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Japanese evacuees stand or sit with their suitcases and belongings in front of a Santa Fe and Topeka passenger train car. The men and women wait for the bus to Camp Amache, Granada Relocation Center, southeastern Colorado. August 30, 1942

Camp Amache in southeastern Colorado was the smallest of the ten Japanese-American internment camps in the United States.

Two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the evacuation of Japanese and Japanese-Americans from the West coast to government internment camps.

[media-credit name=”Photo by Tom Parker. Courtesy Denver Public Library Western History Collection” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] “Sunday afternoon and the three girls who occupy this barracks room relax. The furniture, the book niches, flower pot and print mats are all made by the girls from scrap lumber and scrap pieces of wall board.” December 13, 1942

The Amache camp, near Granada, opened on Aug. 24, 1942. It eventually held over 7,000 Japanese-Americans. The camp contained 30 blocks of residential barracks, each with its own mess hall, laundry and shower rooms. Children attended school, and adults worked on farms growing alfalfa, corn, onions, potatoes, sugar beets and wheat.

[media-credit name=”Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Japanese-American children attended class while interned at Camp Amache during World War II.

Camp Amache was named for the wife of John Wesley Prowers, a pioneer cattleman from the lower Arkansas Valley, and the namesake of Prowers County. Amache was the daughter of a Cheyenne Indian chief.

In 2006, then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton designated the Amache site a National Historic Landmark.

Every year near the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066, there is a Day of Remembrance held at the History Colorado Center. Hosted by the Mile High chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), Japanese-Americans share stories of their World War II internment.

[media-credit name=”Photo by Tom Parker. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library Western History Collection” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] Interior of one of the “apartments” at Camp Amache. December 9, 1942.

[media-credit name=”File Photo” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] This family occupies one of the 20′ X 30′ apartments at Camp Amache. The occupants, at their own expense, have painted and decorated the walls and added furniture.

[media-credit name=”Photo by Tom Parker. Coutesy Denver Public Library Western History Collection” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] A corner of the grade school library in one of the barracks at Camp Amache. December 11, 1942

[media-credit name=”Photo by Tom Parker. Courtesy Denver Public Library Western History Collection” align=”aligncenter” width=”495″][/media-credit] The magazine counter at one of the cooperative stores in the Amache Relocation Center. December 11, 1942